Relationships
297 episodes · Page 2 of 13
#5598: When "You Look Great" Means "I'm Drowning
Masking isn't wellness — it's adaptation under pressure. Why the most put-together people are often the ones nobody thinks to check on.
#5593: Faulty Extrapolation: When One Person Rewires How You See Everyone
A listener's question about a chronically hostile person reveals how one worldview can quietly become your own — and how to get your faith in peopl...
#5592: Two Firewalls, One Relationship: Healing While the Threat Continues
What happens when trauma recovery assumes the danger is over — but one relationship still requires the armor?
#5591: Chronic PTSD: The Diagnosis That Doesn't Exist
Chronic PTSD isn't in the DSM. Complex PTSD is in the ICD-11. Continuous traumatic stress is in neither. What happens to patients in between?
#5585: The Lighthouse Keeper and the Serbian Cabin
A YouTube video from rural Serbia broke one listener's whole model of what a hermit is. Turns out the anchorite image is a thousand years out of date.
#5584: What Happens When Isolation Isn't Chosen
Chosen solitude and forced isolation damage the body differently — and the science shows the damage isn't a one-way door.
#5581: The Jerusalem Post's 1996 Bet and the Global Jewish News Race
A polarizing paper that launched online in 1996 — and the digital news network that followed it.
#5570: Why Phone Trees Break and AI Voice Agents Can Fix Them
AI is good at routing calls and bad at resolving them. That single distinction explains why menu-replacing voice agents work and human-replacing on...
#5569: Measuring Democracy Beyond Voter Turnout
Voter turnout is one reading from one instrument. What else tells us whether a democracy is actually engaged?
#5542: Why Parenting Exhaustion Doesn't Reset Overnight
Small tasks, big depletion: why the parental to-do list never clocks out, and how micro-breaks can help when a full day off isn't coming.
#5535: What's It Like Inside a 15-Month-Old's Head?
Rich sensation, no inner narrator, and memories that form but can't be retrieved — a tour of the fifteen-month-old mind.
#5448: Toddler Mom-Clings After Daycare: What's Normal?
A 15-month-old suddenly wants only mom. Here's what attachment science says about daycare, clinginess, and whether dad can break in.
#5446: The Potter's Field: Who Buries the Unclaimed Dead?
From Hart Island's million graves to the met mitzvah, how societies bury the unclaimed — and why the shame of a pauper's funeral is surprisingly mo...
#5432: What Hospice Workers See at the Deathbed
A UK survey found 97% of palliative care staff witnessed deathbed phenomena. What they see — and why 92% never makes it into the chart.
#5428: Wills, Superstition, and the One Event With 100% Probability
Daniel is a prepper who's terrified of writing a will. Turns out the law, the psychology, and the Israeli defaults all agree he shouldn't be.
#5427: Why Atheists Still Knock on Wood
Religion and superstition aren't the same thing — and the data says they might even pull in opposite directions.
#5421: Why Secular Israelis Still Fast on Yom Kippur
A majority of secular Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur. What the data say about how faith gets handed down — and how observance becomes a weapon.
#5387: Who Decides What Your Keyboard Knows?
Your keyboard's word list was probably frozen in 2014. Here's who maintains the open-source dictionaries — and why Gboard's stays fresh.
#5370: The Spotlight Effect and the Heckler's Playbook
Why a waiting room feels scarier than a stage — and how performers handle hostile crowds without losing the room.
#5369: Pouch Full of Doubt: The Inner Critic at Urgent Care
A tool belt full of emergency supplies, two curious strangers, and the question: is your weird choice yours, or an echo of old ridicule?
#5222: How to Fill a Room With People Who Remember You
Is there a rent-a-crowd industry, and can you use it to make a 41st birthday feel like being remembered?
#5201: Can You Gray Rock Without Losing Yourself?
Gray rocking protects you from a toxic person — but does practicing guardedness bleed into the rest of your life?
#5200: Gray Rocking vs. the Info Diet: What to Actually Share
Gray rocking gets the attention, but the info diet — quietly censoring what you disclose — may be the sharper survival tool.
#5192: Why Flying Fear Starts in Your Late Twenties
Sudden fear of flying in adulthood is common — and it's usually not about the plane at all. What the research says, and what actually helps.